Designer Michael Philippi dies suddenly at 58.
Full disclosure: this is the designer and production that I was to program for this week. I am still in shock as I write this.
Scenic and Lighting Designer Michael Philippi died yesterday while walking to the Goodman Theatre.
Mr. Philippi, who was 58, was in route to the first day of technical rehearsals for High Holidays, when he suddenly collapsed just a few blocks south of the theatre, and died. He had completed focus for the production on Monday, with no sign of health problems. He is survived by his wife, Miriam Hack, and daughter Megan.
A sampling of news items:
Chicago Tribune: “He has been one of this theater’s most important, and frequently unsung, collaborators over the last 20 years.”
Chicago Sun-Times: “...a magician when it came to casting precisely the right light on a stage and conjuring a mood.”
Playbill: “Michael Philippi’s lighting floods the stage with a darkness that is always threatening to consume,…”
Here are just a few of the theatres Michael worked at during his career: (from a Virginia Stage Company bio)
Virginia Stage Company, Manhattan Theatre Club, Playwright’s Horizons, Alliance Theatre Company, Berkeley Repertory Theatre, Repertory Theatre of St. Louis, Milwaukee Repertory, Walnut Street Theatre, Mark Taper Forum and Arena Stage. Goodman Theatre designs include Blue Surge, Boy Gets Girl, Moonlight and Magnolias, Heartbreak House, and Finishing the Picture. He has received Joseph Jefferson Awards for Terra Nova and In the Belly of the Beast….., both at Wisdom Bridge, and Hollywood Drama-Logue Awards for Kabuki Medea at Berkeley Repertory and Changes of Heart for the Mark Taper Forum.
His Broadway designs include Desire Under the Elms, Death of a Salesman and The Speed of Darkness, which originated at Chicago’s Goodman Theatre. International credits include The Iceman Cometh at Dublin’s Abbey Theatre.
The Goodman canceled yesterday’s first tech, and Saturday’s planned first preview of High Holidays as a result of Mr. Philippi’s death. Robert Christen, the Goodman’s Resident Lighting Designer, and long-time friend of Phiippi (they even attended the same high school for a year), will now light the show. A statement from Robert Falls, who was Mr. Philippi’s friend and collaborator for over 20 years, and community condolence page, is on the Goodman website.
Our thoughts are with his family and friends.
Hudson & Gaines
[...] and Lighting Designer (as well as brother, husband, and father) Michael Philippi will be remembered by family and friends at a Service of Comfort in Appleton, [...]
[...] Goodman Theatre’s production of High Holidays, which is the last lighting design of the late Michael Philippi, will close today with two performances. A 2:00pm matinee, and a 7:30pm evening [...]
[...] Theatre in Chicago will host a celebration of the life and work of Lighting and Scenic designer Michael Philippi this Monday, December 14th, at 6:30pm. All are welcome to attend, and no reservations are [...]
[...] Lighting and Scenic Designer Michael Philippi died suddenly on his way to technical rehearsals in Chicago. [...]